The Scott and Helen Nearing Papers

Scott Nearing (1883-1983) & Helen Nearing (1904-1995)

“Life is enriched by aspiration and effort, rather than by acquisition and accumulation.”
— Helen and Scott Nearing in Living the Good Life

The Walden Woods Project’s Thoreau Institute Library holds a rich collection of documents spanning eight decades in the lives of Scott and Helen Nearing, the New England pioneers of homesteading, organic gardening, and sustainable living. The gift of these papers to the Thoreau Institute Library from The Trust for Public Land as an agent for The Good Life Center helps make the library a focal point for the study of the twentieth-century sustainable living movement and the remarkable individuals who influenced it.